There are many ways to schedule your day. Your daily homeschool schedule should reflect your family’s goals, priorities, and personalities. You may need to try out more than one schedule to find the perfect arrangement for your family. We’re sharing a method for creating the daily homeschool schedule that works for you, based on our years of homeschooling experience.
The home part
Home schooling works best in a reasonably organized home. Clutter is stressful for most people, and research shows that kids do better in a more peaceful and orderly environment. So we recommend starting your day with a routine that helps everyone feel calm, fed, and prepared for the day.
Here’s a method for creating your own home preparation routine:
- Identify the basics you consider essential. Our list is on the schedule below, but yours might be different. For example, we feel strongly that everyone’s teeth should be brushed but we don’t c are whether they put their shoes on. You might feel differently. One way to come up with this list is to notice what irritates you or your family. If you know people can’t relax and concentrate if the animals are pestering you, make sure they’re walked and fed before you start your schooldays.
- Decide what time you want to start. 9:00 sounds good to us, but this depends on your family. Are you working in schooling around work or other commitments? Do you have students who have a hard time waking up early? Does attention lag early in the afternoon? Consider factors like these and commit to a firm starting time. Once you’ve done this for a while, everyone’s brains will adapt and you’ll all be ready at that time.
- Figure out how long each item on your basics list will take. We suggest actually timing some tasks a few times. Chances are your guesses will be wrong. But you may be able to speed up either by pitching in together or by practicing speed.
- Map all the basics into the time between waking up and starting school. Post-it notes will help with this. Often you’ll realize that one thing depends on another — you have to cook breakfast before you can either eat it or clean it, after all, and you may find that getting everybody dressed and ready before breakfast works best. Try out some different arrangements to see what works best for your family.
Here’s one way to get everyone (and your home) ready between 7:00 and 9:00.
The school part
Depending on the ages of your students, study might need to be in bits of 10 minutes or 50 minutes. Regardless of the length of time, plan to begin the day with math and reading skills, followed by foreign language, if that’s part of your plan. Learning these skills is easier when you practice at the same time every day, and most people focus best in the morning.
In between these three subjects, plan for some physical activity. Physical activity can be part of your lessons, as when you read an ABC book, sing the ABC song, and then get up and put together an ABC floor puzzle.
For older kids, you might have 30 minutes of silent reading, 20 minutes of discussion, and a 10 minute bike ride.
If you have these three subjects and plan on an hour for each — including free play and silent reading between lessons — you can finish by lunch time. Young children may need a nap after lunch, or this might be an opportunity for errands, sports, or chores. Count these home routines as part of the lunch break.
After lunch, you may choose to alternate or combine history and science. Consider planning hands-on work with all your students together in a unit study. You may also choose individual book and paper work at each student’s grade level.
For example, if you try out our Second Grade Week 1 No-Prep Lesson Plan, your math and reading lessons will center on the legend of King Arthur. After completing these in the morning, you can choose lessons from our Middle Ages lessons in the afternoon.
Try out these routines for yourself. Give your family a little time to settle into them, then write your version up for yourselves and relax, knowing you’re organized.
